A Hairdresser's Experience in High Life

by Eliza Potter, Xiomara Santamarina (Editor)

Here is the first fully annotated edition of a landmark in early African American literature--Eliza Potter's 1859 autobiography, A Hairdresser's Experience in High Life . Potter was a freeborn black woman who, as a hairdresser, was in a unique position to hear about, receive confidences from, and observe wealthy white women--and she recorded it all in a revelatory book that delighted Cincinnati's gossip columnists at the time. But more important is Potter's portrait of herself as a wage-earning woman, proud of her work, who earned high pay and accumulated quite a bit of money as one of the nation's earliest "beauticians" at a time when most black women worked at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. Because her work offered insights into the private lives of elite white women, Potter carved out a literary space that featured a black working woman at the center, rather than at the margins, of the era's transformations in gender, race, and class structure. Xiomara Santamarina provides an insightful introduction to this edition that includes newly discovered information about Potter, discusses the author's strong satirical voice and proud working-class status, and places the narrative in the context of nineteenth-century literature and history.

Genres: Memoir, Read For School, Nonfiction, Research

252 pages, Paperback

First published November 30, 1858

Reviews

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why does this have so few reviews?? This is an amazing book. A woman of color’s own account of living in the pre-civil-war USA. She has juicy fun gossip as well as a lot of political commentary. absolutely loved this book. I wish it could be a tv show. I want 10 romance novels based on it. Brava!

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I came to this primary source by a roundabout route but I'm glad I did. It's part of the Schomburg series of African-American Literature. It's the memoir of a free woman of color who took her hairdressing skills into all echelons of society and to all the hot spots in the eastern U.S. and Europe.
Great stuff - she doesn't hold back in her opinions and interesting insights into Victorian life.
It was easy to get this through ILL (I actually got my copy from the State Library of Ohio) because of the Ohio connection - she worked in Cincinnati - but other volumes in this series that looked interesting are, unfortunately, not so accessible.

[Sonia]

Tantos bailes y cotilleos de blancos ricos me aburren. Igual lo retomo más adelante . Una pena porque tener a una mujer negra profesional e independiente narrándote la vida a mediados del XIX en norteamerica me parece fascinante.
Viajera incansable y observadora, con pocos pelos en la lengua para criticar a amos negros de esclavos (?!? No tenía ni idea!) además de a los de siempre, afearle la conducta a cualquiera que lo mereciera, y no dejar que la ninguneen, es un personaje de lo más interesante, pero páginas y páginas de ricos de fiesta no son para mi.

[Capie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this kind of book. An historical memoir written by an ordinary person in extraordinary circumstances, here a free back woman working as an elite hairdresser in the mid 19th century. The modern editor does the research to contextualize and explain the fascinating environment the author finds herself in. I would only wish that the footnotes were on each page rather than having to flip to the back of the book at random intervals. No, the writing isn’t sublime but the voice is strong and the messages worthy of contemplation.

[Maddy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read for class. Extremely unpleasant experience. Very dry, dense, and dull. Not a drop of excitement anywhere. I honestly can’t imagine there wasn’t another book that we could’ve read instead. Do not recommend. I think this is my first 1 star review.

[Jessica Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was full of great information from a primary source. Her writing was a bit scattered and sometimes her story hard to believe, but it was fun to read and full of interesting tidbits and 19th century gossip.

[Virginia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty much a gossip column book. I was expecting to learn more about the authors insight in to her life as a free black woman rather than shenanigans of her white clientele.

[Libby Young · Rating 3 out of 5]

fascinating

[Sasha Fish · Rating 2 out of 5]

for school

[Jackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Self-published in 1859, HAIRDRESSER follows Black stylist Eliza Potter as she combs her way from France to Cincinatti. For 20 years, Potter rubbed elbows with America's Anglo elite--rearing their kids, styling their hair, and collecting their secrets--and leveraged her insider knowledge for a memoir less about herself than a ridiculous America. Full of contradictions—vain and gossipy yet anonymous and sharp—and writing under a pseudonym, “Iangy” doesn’t even share her race, and critics haven’t known what to do with that since. Although she remains under researched, Potter is an extraordinary journalist—a DeuxMoi or TMZ of her time when Black women were iced out of major publishing and found alternative outlets. Eliza’s work sits naturally with contemporary society critics of the New York penny papers that sparked the newspaper revolution and yellow journalism, but she did it better, juicier, fuller…

[Rebekah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating look into the world of a free woman of color in the early 19th Century. Her observations on high society, as well as North vs. South cultures, slavery, and abolitionists are particularly interesting. A must read for anyone who wants to read a real voice from this time, and a look into elegant culture of pre-war America.

[Ginger Gritzo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Its basically a gossip book with the names of those gossioed about blanked out.